Search Results for: a loss for words

Not much rattles Apple. Disciplined and focused, the company lavishes attention on its own elegant products and rarely deigns to discuss rivals. Yet here was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer and designated stand-in for ailing CEO Steve Jobs, erupting during an earnings call in late January at the mere mention of a pip-squeak competitor. The pest in question was Palm, the fallen pioneer of handheld digital organizers, which two weeks earlier had unveiled a new smartphone, the Palm Pre, to rave reviews. Not only did the Pre have features the iPhone couldn’t match – snazzy multitasking, universal search, a… Read more »

Green Day played the biggest show of its week-long tour of the San Francisco Bay Area April 14th, performing its upcoming album, 21st Century Breakdown, in its entirety. After only eight full rehearsals of the opera and those two club dates, the six-piece Green Day – Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool with guitarist Jason White, keyboardist Jason Freese and guitarist Jeff Matika – had the Quadrophenia-like hang of 21st Century Breakdown’s classic rock melodies and lifetime-punk drive down solid. “I”m not fuckin’ around,” Armstrong crowed in “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” and there was no insecurity in the way… Read more »

Guess who’s back? Eminem appears on the cover of the latest issue of XXL magazine dressed as the Punisher – and, judging from the interview excerpts published on the magazine’s Web site, Em kept up with what was going on in hip-hop during his absence. “I stayed up on the music, and obviously I watch TV and saw what was going on,” he said. “And without naming any names, it just felt like hip-hop was going downhill. And it seemed like kinda fast. You know, in them three years, it was like everybody just cares about the hook and the… Read more »

A picture is worth 1,000 words. But that’s apparently nothing compared to what a whisper is worth. A peeved New York rapper is suing Jay-Z for $88 million, claiming the superstar MC appropriated the other artist’s “whisper rapping” (aka rapping softly) technique and subsequently earned himself a whole lot of money. Mitchell Rose says that he gave Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, a CD containing his lyrics on May 13, 2001, during a Felix Trinidad fight at Madison Square Garden, according to the one-page complaint filed May 23 (of this year) in U.S. District Court and obtained by… Read more »

From the creative well of Kris Anaya comes An Angle’s third offering, The Truth Is That You Are Alive, out June 12th on Drive-Thru Records. An Angle has two previous full-lengths on Drive-Thru, We Can Breathe Under Alcohol (2005) and …And Take It With A Grain of Salt (2004). Anaya and An Angle have gone through several sonic transformations and the journey continues with The Truth, a rock album with pop influxes like the catchy bounce of “I’m Alright” and the lead single and forthcoming video, “Oh! Oh! Oh! Trouble!” Anaya gets gritty in the sexy blues bump of “C’mon… Read more »

JC Chasez has more reason to rue the day that his ‘N Sync mate Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s right breast at the Super Bowl. The blossoming solo artist, who was banned from the Pro Bowl half-time show a week after “Nipplegate,” says radio stations are shunning his new single “All Day Long I Dream About Sex” because they are “terrified” of FCC fines. “When I go to radio stations to visit, they’re like, ‘Oh, man, it’s just so tough right now with the FCC cracking down,’” says Chasez, who is currently touring the U.S. in support of his debut… Read more »

When speaking this month to a representative from Soundscan, the company that provides much of the data for the Billboard Top 200 Chart, I learned things that would contradict reported statements by the RIAA. Mainly that US labels have had a significant reduction in sales over the past three years. Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, responded personally, put his rebuttals on the record and in the process exposed intriguing insight into the way the RIAA calculates “losses.” Soundscan is a service owned by Nielsen, the company that computes TV ratings. Soundscan uses the barcodes on CDs to register sales… Read more »